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A proposal by SummerHill Housing to slightly reduce its affordable housing requirements for a new East Whisman apartment project got the City Council’s blessing on Tuesday. The proposed 447-unit housing project planned at 355 East Middlefield Road is now slated to include 67 subsidized apartments.
The discussion at the Oct. 16 meeting was the latest instance of a developer warning that the city’s aggressive fees and requirements were making it difficult to finance new housing projects.
In recent months these complaints have mostly been focused on projects in the North Bayshore neighborhood, where the city hopes to build as many as 9,850 new apartments and require up to 20 percent of them to be affordable. On Tuesday, SummerHill representatives leveled the same arguments for their proposal in East Whisman, the city’s other area targeted for major growth.
“We’re not asking for any relief but instead we wanted to propose alternatives that would deliver a higher number of units,” said Katia Kamangar, SummerHill vice president. She warned that investors were wary of projects that involved too much affordable housing.
SummerHill’s project would be a mix of 265 rental apartments, 134 condominiums and 48 flats.
The discussion centered over how to value moderate-income housing for the project’s requirements for affordable housing. City officials have made it a point to encourage moderate-income housing to address what they call the “missing middle” families that earn too much to qualify for most subsidized housing, but not enough to afford market-rate housing. To fill that gap, Mountain View leaders have encouraged developers to add a moderate income category for subsidized housing.
These families would be able to pay more in rent than low-income households, so it made sense that the housing requirements on developers should be higher, said Housing Director Wayne Chen. As a rough approximation, the city’s normal 15 percent requirement for affordable housing should be equivalent to about 27 percent for moderate-income housing, he said.
SummerHill representatives disagreed with that assessment, and they offered a series of alternatives that they said would be feasible on their end. Of those options, the City Council threw its support behind a blended proposal to build 26 low-income units and 39 moderate-income units. Under this option, SummerHill would not have to pay $7 million from in-lieu fees required for the condominiums, and that money would be used to build more subsidized housing.
While it wasn’t quite what the city hoped for, it was still important to get the housing built, said Councilwoman Pat Showalter.
“We need to take advantage of the good economy while we have it,” she said.
The alternative carried in a 4-1 straw vote with Councilman John McAlister opposed. Councilman Ken Rosenberg was absent and Councilwoman Lisa Matichak abstained.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion.
In your case, if you had any money, plus business experience and you tried your nonsense in the real world, you would be bankrupt very fast.
You should just be honest and say what the real motivation is behind all your posts.
You despise all landlords and you want to punish them every which way you can and be dammed the consequences too fewer and more expensive housing.
TBM is very well known on this forum for his anti landlords and generally anti free enterprise stance.
He enjoys the most, when the free entrepreneurs take risk and fall, than he takes most of the space in the comments column to “clarify” and “scientifically” explain to the readers why they failed.
He gets a kick out of it because he needs to justify to himself his own failure, and assure himself of the “correct path” he took by doing nothing productive, just relying on a government handout.
This is even simpler put.
BTW, he dreams of CH repeal, but is not going to happen according to all signs on earth and heavens.
Californians got it right this time, and I hope the tide is turning against these onerous regulations that are suffocating the state.
Out of curiosity, what does CH stand for in “CH repeal”? Also TBM’s typing speed is impressive and format resembles old times SQL.
What is the difference between flats and apartments? The article mentions both are being developed
I assume apartments for rent, flats for sale, but what is condos in this article? I live in townhouse typo condo, but condos can be flats as well.
This is a perfect example that Costa Hawkins is a failure.
Simply put, politics is influenced by money, lots of it.
Proposition 10 provides that the citizens have the ultimate power over housing poicy in the future based on the text of the porposition found here:
“Section 7. Amendment and Repeal
Pursuant to Article II, Section 10, Subdivision ( c ), of the California Constitution, the Legislature may amend this Act to further its purposes by a statute passed in each house by roll call vote entered in the Journal, two-thirds of the membership concurring, signed by the Governor. No statute restricting or eliminating the powers that have been restored by this Act to a city, county, or city and county to establish residential rental rates shall become effective unless approved by a majority of the electorate.”
Simply put, MONEY has BOUGHT the State, County, and Local governments. We must remove the corruption by establishing that the voters have the ultimate choice.
The City Council does not appear able to increase affordable housing in Mountain View. Every time the developers make a promise to provide affordable housing, at the last minute, after getting approval for the prior promise, they erase the majority of the affordable units.
THIS IS THEIR PLAN ALL ALONG, TRAP LOCAL GOVERNMENTS AFTER THEY GIVE INTIAL APPROVAL.
THE VOTER MUST TAKE ACTION.
In response to @TBM you said:
Posted by @TBM
“Everyone is entitled to their opinion.”
Yes that is correct. You said:
“In your case, if you had any money, plus business experience and you tried your nonsense in the real world, you would be bankrupt very fast.”
INTERESTING, YOU DO NOT PROVIDE ANY IFORMATION THAT CONTRADICTS MY OBSERVATION? You said:
“You should just be honest and say what the real motivation is behind all your posts.”
MY POST WAS CLEAR. YOU ARE NOT PROVIDING ANY EVIDENCE TO ARGUE AGAINST IT. You said:
“You despise all landlords and you want to punish them every which way you can and be dammed the consequences too fewer and more expensive housing.”
I DON’T DESPISE LANDLORDS, MY NEIGHBOR LANDLORD NEXT DOOR IS AWESOME.
I DON’T ACCEPT THE NOTION THAT LANDLORDS ARE ENTITLED TO MAKING A PROFIT WITHOUT SKILLFUL MANAGEMENT.
LANDLORDS EITHER DICTATE THAT THE PUBLIC SUBSIDIZE THEIR PROFITS BY HAVING FEDERAL, STATE, AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS GIVE THEM GIFTS IN ORDER TO PROVIDE AFFORDABLE HOUSING, OR CHOOSE TO ONLY BUILD PREMIUM LUXURY HOUSING.
Is SummerHill the only developer we can go with? Seems they always get what they want. Never what MV wants.
The article didn’t mention adequate on-site parking to avoid occupants clogging local streets and making it difficult for other residents to park in in front of their homes. What has MV done to make sure that Summerhill must include REALISTIC, and not just pie-in-the-sky idealistic provisions for on-site parking? I seem to remember that between 1.6 to 2 full-sized parking spaces per unit is a realistic standard. Los Angeles, for instance, requires 2 spaces per unit.
THIS IS A REPEAT POST TO TRY TO FORCE MV TO MANDATE REALISTIC AMOUNTS OF PARKING SPACES FOR NEW DEVELOPMENTS.
The article didn’t mention adequate on-site parking to keep occupants from clogging local streets and making it difficult for other residents to park where they want. What has MV done to make sure that Summerhill must include REALISTIC, and not just pie-in-the-sky idealistic provisions for on-site parking? I seem to remember that between 1.6 to 2 full-sized parking spaces per unit is a realistic standard. Los Angeles, for instance, requires 2 spaces per unit. Just what is the MV City Council — and its incredibly idealistic and ignorant Planning Commission — telling Summerhill what on-site parking spaces they can avoid having to set aside RESPONSIBLY?